The LiveUpdate facility in Norton Antivirus 2002 refuses to update the virus definition files. Norton Antivirus reports the virus definitions are current as at 23/12/2003, yet every now and then, the program warns me they are out of date and should be updated. When I instruct the program to update it goes through the motions and then tells me that it is up-to-date. However, nothing has changed. My virus subscription expires 27/12/2004 so this is not the problem.

I have found an excellent article in the Symantec Knowledge Base which lists the most common reasons and solutions for the problem where the virus definition date does not change. You should try all the suggestions in this article. Go to www.symantec.com/techsupp/nav/nav_2003_info_solve_lu.html and click ‘Virus definitions date does not change after running LiveUpdate’. This article also explains how to manually update the virus definition files using Intelligent Updater, so if you are in real trouble and you cannot solve this problem you can at least keep your virus definitions up-to-date until a better solution can be found.

If LiveUpdate still has problems, I found another procedure on the Symantec Knowledge Base. Be aware this procedure may involve reinstalling Norton Antivirus. If the procedure works, you will be able to use LiveUpdate to download the updates again. However, if it doesn’t you will lose all virus definition updates which were applied between now and the time you originally installed Norton Antivirus. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘regedit’. Go to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlFilesystem. In the right-hand pane, find the value ‘NtfsDisable8Dot3NameCreation’. Right-click on this value and select ‘Modify’. Check the number in the ‘Value data:’ field. If this number is not 0 then change the number to 0, click OK, close Registry Editor, uninstall Norton Antivirus, restart the computer, and then reinstall Norton Antivirus. However, if this value is already 0, do not modify the number, but click ‘Cancel’ then close the Registry Editor. If you reach this point, I am not aware of other methods we could use to solve this problem. Possibly, you could upgrade to the latest version of Norton Antivirus and, if the problem persists, contact Symantec support.